They say that Cyprus initially got in trouble by foolishly lending money to bankster-infested Greece. The thing about Cyprus is that it’s main “industry” is the off-shore tax shelter racket “business.” They “shelter” many tens of $billions of Russian mafia loot. But also many tens of $billions of Russian Government funds! (Just don’t ask.) And when Greece went belly-up, both the Russian mafia and the Russian Government stood to be looted — Unless somebody would “bail out” the Cypriot banks.
That would be the Russian Government itself, or the austerity-loving IMF. Putin was not keen at all on bailing out (throwing away sovereign wealth at) the Russian oligarchs, but the IMF wanted to impose a 10% confiscation of all Cypriot bank deposits, plus the usual austerity measures (libertarian “social cuts”). If no bail-out agreement was finalized before 3/25/13, Cyprus would become instantly bankrupt and would exit the European Union. Add to all this that Cyprus is largely comprised of Turkish (an Islamic NATO country) ethnics in its North, and Greek (largely Orthodox Christian non-NATO) ethnics in its South (and so a civil war happens on-and-off).
The game of chicken went on until the very last moment. Putin refused to budge. The protests got so tremendous that Cyprus had to limit bank account confiscation to accounts larger than €100,000. But the austerity cuts were still in play. So at the very last moment before 3/25/13, the IMF winked, and agreed to do the bailout (with austerity measures).
The Russian oligarchs (mostly former KGB) are certainly going to leave a body trail. But NATO didn’t get Russia to bail them out. Putin knew that Cyprus had become too expensive.
Wait for the “humanitarian” intervention when the Turkish Cypriots rebel.
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